space to see two bucks with heads
joined, slowly, feebly pushing this way and that. Their tongues were
out; they seemed almost exhausted, and the trampled snow for an acre
about plainly showed that they had been fighting for hours; that indeed
these were the ones he had heard in the night. Still they were evenly
matched, and the green light in their eyes told of the ferocious spirit
in each of these gentle-looking deer.

Rolf had no difficulty in walking quite near. If they saw him, they gave
slight heed to the testimony of their eyes, for the unenergetic struggle
went on until, again pausing for breath, they separated, raised their
heads a little, sniffed, then trotted away from the dreaded enemy so
near. Fifty yards off, they turned, shook their horns, seemed in doubt
whether to run away, join battle again, or attack the man. Fortunately
the first was their choice, and Rolf returned to the cabin.

Quonab listened to his account, then said: "You might have been killed.
Every buck is crazy now. Often they attack man. My father's brother was
killed by a Mad Moon buck. They found only his body, torn to rags. He
had got a little way up a tree, but the buck had pinned him. There were
the marks, and in the snow they could see how he held on to the deer's
horns and was dragged about till his strength gave out. He had no gun.
The buck went off. That was all they knew. I would rather trust a bear
than a deer."

The Indian's words were few, but they drew a picture all too realistic.
The next time Rolf heard the far sound of a deer fight, it brought back
the horror of that hopeless fight in the snow, and gave him a new and
different feeling for the antler-bearer of the changing mood.

It was two weeks after this, when he was coming in from a trip alone on
part of the line, when his ear caught some strange sounds in the
woods ahead; deep, sonorous, semi-human they were. Strange and weird
wood-notes in winter are nearly sure to be those of a raven or a jay; if
deep, they are likely to come from a raven.

"Quok, quok, ha, ha, ha-hreww, hrrr, hooop, hooop," the diabolic noises
came, and Rolf, coming gently forward, caught a glimpse of sable pinions
swooping through the lower pines.

"Ho, ho, ho yah--hew--w--w--w" came the demon laughter of the death
birds, and Rolf soon glimpsed a dozen of them in the branches, hopping
or sometimes flying to the ground. One alighted on a brown bump. Then
the bump began to move a little. The ra